


there is a long invisible thread (that wraps around my heart and wraps around your head)

by echoes_of_realities



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Canon, Cuddling, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, I'll add more tags as they come up, More or less plotless, Pre-Canon, one shots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8436226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoes_of_realities/pseuds/echoes_of_realities
Summary: A series of one-shots.Chapter 3: Rosa frowns at him, one side of her mouth twisted up in disgust. “The Feeling?”“Yeah. I mean, it could be, like, the taquitos from this morning,” he hurries to explain because this is Rosa, self proclaimed hater of that soulmate bullshit, “but like, I dunno. It’s different.” There’s another tug in his stomach, like the person on the other end sharply jerked the rope. It’s an odd feeling, but not necessarily uncomfortable.Rosa continues to frown at him, but something clears in her face. “I believe you.”“What?” She shrugs. “You look like you just got sucker punched,” a smirk spreads across her face, “You must be in luv.”





	1. guide me back home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set the morning before the squad goes to see Captain Stentley. Also, like, complete fluff. I started this as fluff and ended it as fluff, there is no plot whatsoever.
> 
> Title from _Home_ by American Authors.

She moves away from him when her first alarm goes off and he frowns at the loss of warmth. Sleep still clings to him and he shivers when the cold morning air creeps in under the blanket as she rolls to the other side of the bed and reaches for her alarm clock. When Amy returns to him with a kiss to the corner of his mouth, he’s surprised enough to squint his eyes open into the weak morning sun.

“G’mornin’,” he mumbles against her lips. 

She settles back against him, one arm snaking beneath his back and the other hand stretched across his side, fingers rubbing circles onto the skin of his hipbone. She’s careful to arrange her legs gently around his uninjured one before pressing a kiss to his collar bone and pushing her cold nose into his neck. “Morning.”

Jake tightens his arms around her and sleepily buries his face into her hair, breathing in the faint scent of raspberries. It’s longer than it used to be, but she still uses the same shampoo she did all those months ago and that thought alone is enough to make him press a smile deeper into her hair. “That was your first alarm,” he murmurs into her scalp.

“Mmm.”

“You’re always out of bed as soon as it goes off, you psycho,” he mumbles. No one has any reason to be as unnaturally cheerful as she always is in the mornings. (Unless, of course, that person was waking up to a bed-warm Amy Santiago, like he is, because then it’s completely reasonable to be so ecstatically happy.)

“Mmm.” He can feel the vibrations from her hum against his neck and it makes his toes tingle pleasantly. 

“You’ll be late for work,” he sings, voice still hoarse with sleep.

“I have until the third alarm before I _have_ to get up.”

Jake gasps, breathing in the faint scent of cinnamon that always seems to cling to her no matter what. “Amy Santiago, you wouldn’t.”

“I would,” her voice is muffled, but he can feel her warm breath ghost across his neck and it sends chills racing up and down spine. His chest feels funny and he can’t believe how much he’s missed her.

“You?” he exclaims in his most scandalized voice, “Breaking a rule?”

Her breathy laugh makes his entire body hum with pure joy at just being with her. The arm underneath him slides up until her fingers curl around his shoulder and her other hand slips under his shirt to flatten against the soft skin there.

“You just want to cuddle,” he accuses.

“Of course I do,” she says, pushing herself up until her face is hovering over his. She presses a long, gentle kiss to his mouth, lips slightly chapped and so, so warm. Her hand slips away from his shoulder to run across his neck and curl into the too-long hair at the nape of his neck.

He grins against her lips, neck craning up to follow her mouth when she pulls away. “Well,” he agrees amicably, heart stuttering like it hasn’t in half a year, “we do have six months of cuddling to make up for.”

She giggles into his neck as she settles back against him. “See, that’s why we need to start now.”

Her second alarm starts blaring and she heaves a sigh, before leaning out of his embrace just far enough to slap the clock a couple times until it stops shrieking at them. When she curls back around him she’s more sprawled over him than beside him, still careful to avoid his injured leg, and Jake finds that he doesn’t mind at all. He draws small circles across her shoulder blade, skimming his fingers under her shirt (which he’s _pretty_ sure is actually his) and across the smooth skin on the small of her back. He presses grinning kisses to the top of her head and laughs when he feels her nip at the junction between his shoulder and neck in retaliation.

When her third alarm goes off Amy groans heavily and pushes herself up, reaching over to the bedside table to retrieve her glasses and push them up her nose. She stands and stretches her arms over her head, shirt riding up and exposing a small line of golden skin above the shorts she slept in and—

“Are those my boxers?”

She glances back at him, arms falling to her sides. “Yeah.”

Jake pouts. “I was wondering where those were, I couldn’t find them when I was packing for Witness Protection.” He feels his nose crinkle at the memory, but forgets all about Witness Protection and Florida and the six months from hell as his mind catches up to why, exactly, Amy has his boxers.

“You stole them,” he accuses.

“They were clean,” she replies defensively.

“They were my favourite!” he whines, even though he doesn’t _really_ care that she stole them (along with his favourite hoodie, but he gave her that one because he couldn’t take it with him so it doesn’t really count as theft). He totally would have stolen something of hers if he was allowed to but, as much as he loved breaking them, rules suddenly didn't seem so trivial when the lives of everyone he loved were at stake.

“Sorry.” She tries to look sheepish but doesn’t succeed at all, eyes unapologetic and mouth twisting to fight a grin.

Jake is overcome with the sudden urge to kiss her (like always, to be perfectly honest) and his breath escapes him in a soft _whoosh._ He stretches across the bed and manages to wrap his fingers around one of Amy’s wrists, grinning at her sound of surprise when he tugs her to him. She tumbles onto the bed and has the presence of mind to catch herself before she squishes his leg, which he’s thankful for because he kind of forgot about the whole getting shot thing and her landing on it would probably hurt, like, a lot.

“Hi,” he says breathily. She’s hovering above him, her arms on either side of him and her face so close her features blur together.

“Hi,” she giggles back. 

He brings his hands up to cup her face. “I’m going to kiss you,” he tries to warn her, but he’s barely got the words out of his mouth when her lips are pressing against his, swallowing the rest of his sentence. Her mouth is insistent but gentle against his (the whole getting shot and receiving the wrong type of blood kind of put him out of commission for a while). His entire world narrows to Amy and the warmth of her body above his and the soft press of her lips and the cool plastic of her glasses against his nose. 

It’s not until she pulls back, forehead resting against his, that he registers the blaring of an alarm. “Snooze button from alarm number two,” she explains. Her eyes have merged into one on the bridge of her nose, but he can still see the amusement there. “Now I really need to get ready or I’ll be late.”

He huffs a melodramatic sigh, “Fine, but we’re picking the cuddling up where we left off when you get home.”

She presses one more kiss to his lips. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she mumbles against his mouth. He grins as she pulls away from him, finally retreating to the bathroom to prepare for what is sure to be a long day at work.

He listens to her move around in the bathroom, the quiet rustle of clothing as she brushes her teeth and starts the shower; it’s normal and comfortable and so _achingly_ familiar that he feels the telltale prickle of wetness in the corners of his eyes. Once he hears the sound of running water change as she slips into the shower he sits up and slowly swings his legs off the bed, struggling to untangle the sheets from where they’re caught around his shins. When Jake finally manages to escape the sheets his leg is throbbing and he is definitely _not_ out of breath, not even a little bit. His crutches must have slid down the wall during the night because they’re just out of reach. He sighs and stretches to try and reach them before finally admitting defeat and standing to hobble to the wall, precariously balancing on one leg and bending down to finally grab one of the crutches.

He considers the other crutch before deciding he _probably_ doesn’t need it. He half limps and half stumbles out of Amy’s bedroom (they simultaneously decided that trying to manage his loft bedroom was definitely not a good idea while he was limping everywhere). He makes it down the hallway and into the kitchen successfully, only needing to catch himself on the wall twice (which, in his modest opinion, is extremely impressive).

Her coffee filters and coffee grounds are exactly where they used to be, and he grabs one regular mug and one travel thermos, fighting gravity to stay upright as he stretches to reach the thermos. (Why does she even keep her thermos on the top shelf? She’s shorter than he is so it’s not like it’s convenient for her or something.) 

If there’s one thing he can count on Amy for, it’s never changing where she stores her stuff. Everything in her apartment is exactly where he remembers it being, which is both familiar and disconcerting. It’s like he hasn’t been gone at all, even though he knows it’s been far too long since he spent a night at Amy’s apartment.

The coffee is slowly brewing, filling the apartment with the rich aroma of the Cuban coffee Amy’s aunt somehow supplies her entire family with. He starts humming and hopping around the kitchen, finding the creamer in the fridge door and the sugar in the cupboard above the coffee machine. He’s so focused on making two perfect cups of coffee that he doesn’t even notice when the shower stops, or when Amy walks down the hall to stare at him from the edge of the kitchen, or when she coughs to get his attention.

“What are you doing, weirdo?” 

Jake recoils in surprise, stumbling mid-hop and catching himself on the island as he spins to see Amy standing at the entrance to the kitchen, eyes bright behind her glasses and fighting a smile. Her hair is wet from the shower and water drips onto her shoulders, trailing across skin that he knows is much too soft for his own sanity and disappearing under the fuzzy blue towel wrapped tight around her.

Her eyebrows are raised and he knows that she knows exactly what she’s doing to him.

Jake manages to mostly swallow his tongue before answering, fighting off the warmth he can feel on his checks. “Making coffee. For work. For you to take to work. Because work can’t drink coffee. That’d be dumb.” He’s rambling, but that’s the only thing stopping him from forgetting the dumb doctor’s dumb orders that he can’t do anything too physically demanding until his dumb leg heals.

Her face softens, easing into a smile that dimples the right corner of her mouth, the smile he’d missed so, so, _so_ much. “I love you,” she says, “so much.”

His face threatens to split in half as his own smile widens. “I love you so much too.”

The coffee finishes brewing with a hiss behind him, but he’s too distracted by how bright Amy’s eyes are and how pretty her smile is and how much the water dripping off her nose sparkles to notice. She clears her throat and points back down the hallway, voice a little hoarse when she speaks, “I should- I should go. Get dressed. For work.”

He can’t help it when his smile turns smug. “Right. Work.”

She nods emphatically. “Work.” Her eyes dart over his face before she nods again. “Work,” she repeats under her breath, somehow making the word sound like a curse, before she turns to walk back to the bedroom.

“Work,” Jake mutters to himself as he hobbles to the other counter and pours coffee into the thermos and mug. 

(It has words _There, They’re, Their_ scrawled on it and a smiling whale underneath, a gift he had gotten her during their first Christmas together, nearly a year into their partnership. He hadn’t realized she had kept it all these years until the first night he had spent at her apartment, unable to keep a grin off his face for the rest of the day after pulling it from the cupboard in the morning and discovering she still had it.)

He pours too much creamer and too much sugar into his coffee, taking a long sip. “Work,” he mutters again with a small scowl, but it quickly disappears under the simple fact that he’s standing in Amy’s kitchen making them each a cup of coffee. He turns to the thermos, suddenly disproportionately nervous about adding cream and sugar to Amy’s coffee. (Because it’s been six months, what if he’s completely forgotten how to make her coffee? Sure, he’s been making her coffee for _years_ , long before they ever started dating, but _still_.)

His hands shake a little as he adds cream, stirring until it turns a dark blonde. He adds exactly one and a half teaspoons of sugar, mouth dry as he tightens the lid on the thermos. He finishes putting away the cream and sugar just as Amy walks into the kitchen, hair mostly dry and half tied away from her face. She’s struggling one-handed into her pantsuit jacket, juggling his missing crutch and her purse in one hand as she searches for the armhole of her jacket with the other. It’s a sight that’s both so odd and familiar that he can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out of his chest, momentarily forgetting his anxiety over making her coffee.

She shoots him a mock-glare as she drops her purse onto the counter and leans his crutch against it, finally finding the arm of her jacket and shrugging it on. She doesn’t seem to be in a rush to leave so he glances at the microwave to see the time for the first time that morning. It’s only ten minutes past eight and he spins unsteadily to look at Amy. 

“You still have, like, an hour to get to work!”

She grins at him, a teasing glint sparkling in her dark eyes. “Yep.”

He points an accusatory finger at her. “You set all three of your alarms earlier so you’d still wake up at your regular time by the third alarm.”

“Great detecting, Detective.”

“Oh, you’re sneaky, Santiago.” Jake tries to keep his face stern, but it’s really, _really_ hard when she’s slinking up to him and it’s been six whole _months_. 

“But now we have some awake time before I have to leave,” she explains, a hand landing on his shoulder and sliding up to cup the back of his head.

“To do what?” Is his voice really that hoarse? It shouldn’t be that hoarse.

Amy’s breath ghosts across his face, she smells of mint and of raspberries and, somehow, still of cinnamon. “To have,” she breathes, her lips millimetres from his while his eyes slide closed on their own volition, “coffee together, of course.”

His eyes snap open, suddenly missing the warmth of her body, to find her leaning back against the counter, eyes crinkling at the corners and teeth flashing as she laughs at what is probably a dumbfounded look on his face. He scowls at her until his own laughter is bubbling up. Her smile widens when she darts forward to quickly peck his lips in apology. He captures her hand to hold her to him, continuing to laugh against her mouth, only drawing back when his good leg begins to shake. 

“Jake?”

“I’m good, I’m good. I’m so good,” he soothes (which is true, he’s better than he’s been in far too long). “I’m super good.” Amy eyes him and he huffs a lighthearted sigh. “My leg just maybe hurts the tiniest little bit.”

Her expression clears. “Jake,” she scolds gently. “You shouldn’t be standing.”

He grins. “You didn’t seem to mind a couple seconds ago.” He definitely deserves the smack she delivers to her shoulder (and will look forward to deserving said smack for the rest of his life).

She rolls her eyes and turns to grab his other crutch, shoving it in his hands and shooing him towards the living room. He salutes her, causing her to roll her eyes again, and limps to the living room. He gratefully sinks onto the couch while Amy retrieves their respective coffees and settles against his side. She passes him his mug as he wraps an arm around her, dropping a quick kiss to her shoulder.

His stomach erupts in butterflies as she lifts her thermos to her lips. She hums in contentment as she takes a sip of her coffee, lips turning up at the corners around the rim of her thermos. “You remembered how to make it.” Amy doesn’t sound surprised, but rather understanding, as if she somehow knows of his apprehension over making her coffee right.

Jake grins, a little self-deprecating. “I may have maybe made two cups of coffee for the first month of hell,” he admits.

Her eyes soften, something warm and familiar swimming in the dark depths. She presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, the scent of her toothpaste mixing with the rich smell of coffee. “I love you,” she whispers.

He turns his head a little to capture her mouth fully, his own words of love lost against her lips. His chest isn’t tight anymore and his stomach doesn’t sink every time he turns and she’s not there, because she is there, she’s warm and solid and bright and _real._ His eyes prickle with wetness again and he can feel light bubbling under his sternum and threatening to burst from his chest because he’s so _happy_.

She pulls back from him and her eyes are a little shiny too and they both burst out laughing because he is ridiculously in love with her and she’s ridiculously in love with him and it took six months but they’re both _finally_ home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A collection of generally fluffy one-shots that will mostly involve cuddling, because I’m a sucker for otp cuddles. Title from _Invisible Thread_ by Matt Gould and Griffin Matthews for the musical “Invisible Thread,” which I recently discovered and have been listening to almost non-stop.


	2. press my nose up to the glass around your heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set pre-canon in the early days of Jake and Amy’s partnership. The first scene is totally inspired by the last picture in [this post.](http://phil-the-stone.tumblr.com/post/150147929363/bonus-brooklyn-nine-nine-textposts-will-i-ever) I’ve also bumped up the rating to a T because of the description of a hate crime in this chapter.
> 
> (I finished my sixth out of eight midterms today and am Suffering™)
> 
> Title from _Babel_ by Mumford  & Sons.

One of the first times they maybe-kinda bond just-a-little-bit is during the first major case they’re both assigned to. It’s three o’god-awful-clock in the morning and they’ve been at the precinct for the last forty-eight hours. Jake started speaking to a point past her shoulder sometime after thirty-two hours and Amy is positive she can _hear_ colours. Her vision is starting to blur as she stares, mostly blankly, at the file in front of her. The words are floating across her eyes and she’s starting to think she can see through the paper when Jake speaks up from somewhere to her right. 

He’s somehow positioned himself upside down in the chair beside her desk, feet dangling over the back onto the chair by his desk. His arms are thrown out away from his face, reading the file upside down. (Is it right-side up if he’s upside down? Or is it upside-down-upside-down? Either way, Amy’s far too tired for this.)

“Do you think stars have feelings?”

Amy takes a second to focus on his face, of which he has at least two and a half, before she answers.

“Probably not. I mean, by the time their light reaches us they’re already dead, right?”

“What?” Jake exclaims, so scandalized that he flips painfully over the arm of the chair. He lands in a heap on the floor, surrounded by an assortment of toys and office supplies that his feet knocked off their desks. Amy can’t even bring herself to care. There’s a Rubix Cude pushed against his neck and she’s pretty sure he’s laying on her stapler. He sighs dreamily into the ground, “You know this is pretty comfortable. I could just sleep here.”

Amy has to agree, because the floor looks way more inviting that any mattress ever has.

At that moment the night janitor comes into the bullpen and starts vacuuming obnoxiously loud, either not seeing them or not caring about the exhausted detectives in the middle of the room. Jake is mumbling to himself, face smooshed against the ground and body and limbs twisted awkwardly.

Amy manages to stand without falling over and reaches down for his hand. He stares at it for a second before allowing her to pull him unsteadily to his feet. He kicks the pile of office supplies and toys under their desks; Amy doesn’t even scold him for not picking them up properly. It’s at this moment that she realizes if they don’t get some sleep they’re going to collectively lose their minds. Their hands are still clasped as she pulls him into the dark break room. She would probably have been annoyed about holding hands with Jacob _An-Actual-Child_ Peralta if she wasn’t. So. God. Damn. _Tired_.

Amy pulls them to the couch and points, grunting out something that passes for the word “sleep.” She slumps onto the couch while Jake falls down beside her, flopping onto his stomach. He’s more or less asleep before his body even hits the cushions, forehead resting somewhere near her hip and face pressed into what she is sure is a disgusting smelling couch, legs dangling off the arm. She sets an alarm for two hours and promptly falls asleep.

When the shrill sound of Amy’s alarm goes off in what feels like seconds after falling asleep, she honestly contemplates throwing her phone out the break room door. She’s warm and comfortable and the stupid little device is mocking her in its stupid tinny screech. Jake groans from somewhere that’s both above and behind her while she blearily gropes the couch for her phone.

She finally finds it, stuck between two couch cushions, and squints in irritation at the too bright light. With the alarm blissfully silenced she finally takes stock of her situation. Her mind is foggy with sleep and there are itchy spots somewhere behind her eyes, but her mind is rapidly clearing as she realizes where, and more importantly _how_ , she had been sleeping. Sometime during the too few hours of sleep Jake and her had curled around each other on the couch. She is curled up on her side with her head and arms pooled on Jake’s lap and over his hip, while Jake has one leg tucked under him and the other dangling to the floor, his body folded nearly in half and head resting on his arms across her back and side. 

Amy’s ears grow warm in a slightly delayed way, as if her body is still groggily waking up. The dimmed lights from the bullpen drift across the break room door and, as utterly embarrassed she will be once she regains about twenty more hours of sleep, and as much as Jake will tease her once he fully wakes, Amy’s actually pretty comfortable. They’ve been working together for four months and it is starting to get a little easier. He even managed to surprise a laugh out of her last week, and the awed shock on his face had almost been worth the teasing that followed. He is still immature and childish, she’s sure he still thinks she’s uptight and dorky, but sometimes he startles a laugh out of her with his weird jokes and sometimes he lights up like a kid on Christmas when she compliments his paperwork.

That and Jake’s, like, _really_ comfortable to sleep on. 

He groans and buries his face into the dip between her ribs and hipbone when she shifts to stretch out her legs to try and get some blood flowing back into them.

Eventually he sits up, forcing her to push herself into a somewhat normal position and pocket her phone, legs swinging down to the floor. 

His hair is mussed, sticking straight up on one side and tangled in short curls on the other. There’s a red imprint on his cheek under his left eye where his face had pressed into his forearms and his shirt is buttoned wrong from when he changed sometime yesterday.

He looks so ridiculous that Amy starts giggling.

He stares at her warily, red-rimmed eyes squinting at her. She knows she can’t look any better. Her hair is only half in a pony tail and there’s a crick in her neck that’s making her turn her whole torso towards him. Her eyes are dry and burn painfully every time she blinks, which is in part from how tired she still is but mostly from her dried contacts. She forgot her glasses at home, like an idiot (she’s usually very meticulous about checking her bag to make sure she had everything she could ever need, but this case has been really taking its toil on her), and now she has to deal with dry contacts or fuzzy vision and headaches. She easily decided on dried contacts because nothing was worth the pounding headaches she gets when she goes too long without her glasses or contacts.

Jake rubs the back of his hand across the side of his mouth, grimacing a little and looking at her apologetically. “Sorry if I drooled on you.”

“What? Ew!” Amy exclaims, hands running over her side and trying feel her shirt without making her neck cramp up. He starts laughing, that deep belly-deep laugh that always makes a grin pull across her face, even as she glares at him in annoyance. “You didn’t drool, did you?”

He snorts a little, rubbing a spot at his left forearm with a smirk. “No, I definitely did. I’m pretty sure it’s mostly on my arm though.”

Amy shakes her head, which sends pain arching through her neck. She stands and rubs at the junction between her neck and shoulder, trying to stretch the knot out.

Jake slowly stands beside her. He takes a step towards the coffee machine, but the leg that had been twisted under him must spasm because he staggers forward with a surprised yelp of pain.

She stretches her arms over her head, still trying to stretch out the crick in her neck, while Jake half limps half hops towards the coffee machine, hissing every time his foot touches the ground. Amy drops her arms and stares at his back as he partially grumbles and partially sings his way through the process of making coffee, not bothering to turn a light on and instead working in the partial light from the bright bullpen. She’s still way too tired to move because that requires a mostly functioning brain, something she’s currently lacking.

Jake turns back towards her and offers her a cup of coffee. She finally manages to unroot herself and shuffle towards him to take the blissfully warm mug, stifling a yawn to mumble her thanks. She’s not surprised to find that her coffee is exactly the way she likes it. Jake had memorized the way she took her coffee within a month of working together, even when they were both at each other’s throats. (Jake claims it’s because she’s more terrifying than Rosa without her morning coffee, she’s pretty sure it’s because he might actually hold a small spark of friendship for her, somewhere.)

She waits as Jake adds too much cream and too much sugar to his mug for it to be truly considered coffee (his coffee is easy to make, as long as it smells sickly sweet it’s perfect for him) before leaving the break room to return to their respective desks.

The janitor is gone from the bullpen, leaving them in relative silence. Amy takes a long sip of her coffee, smiling as the hot liquid warms her insides and awakes the rest of her body. Jake gulps his coffee, hissing as it burns his mouth, before taking another gulp heedless of the fact that he _just_ burned his mouth. 

Amy settles at her desk and pulls the file towards her. It’s amazing how many words stop floating off the page once she’s had even a couple hours of sleep. She can hear Jake ease himself into his chair and glances up at him. His leg is sticking awkwardly from his chair, hovering just above the ground. Noticing her look he gestures to his leg, clumsily manoeuvring himself closer to his desk. “Still asleep,” he explains.

She nods and returns to her file. She could recite the facts of this case in her sleep by this point, but they’re still no closer to solving it. A series of robberies ending in murder, no reliable witnesses (and those who did see the theft couldn’t put a clear description together), no physical evidence, seemingly no connection between the stores and what was stolen, all resulting in no sleep for Jake and Amy for fear that the Vulture would see their case heating up and swoop in to steal it (even though it’s been their case for a week and the Vulture usually loses interest by then, there’s still that unspoken fear there).

Jake’s mumbles to himself for a minute or two before glancing up at her. “Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong.”

Amy sighs and drops her file on her desk, desperate for any ideas. “How so?”

“Well, we were assuming that robbery was the motive and the murders were an accidental outcome, right? But what if murder was the intent and robbery was a cover.”

Amy leans forward to rest her arms on her desk. “I’m listening.”

“Okay, so hear me out. One of the first cases I solved as a detective was this guy who robbed a little convenience store. The store owner was accidentally killed during the robbery. The perp took money and some goods from the store, but nothing he took made sense, aside from the money, obviously. He just stole some tobacco, cigarettes, and chocolate bars from the front desk. He was dumb though because he totally forgot there was security cameras and showed his face on, like, all of them. I caught him the next day, and when he confessed he said that he stole some stuff to make it look like a robbery gone bad. Turns out the store owner had fired him the month before and he wanted revenge.” Jake’s brown eyes are sparkling, face alight with the exhilaration of being _so close_ to solving the puzzle. “Why rob the stores in the middle of the day?” he continues. “Considering the equipment they had it would be easier to do it at night when no one’s there to witness it. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Unless they _wanted_ people to be there,” she agrees, face clearing with realization. “We need to stop assuming the stores were robbed at random and start looking at for a connection between the murder victims.”

“Exactly!” Jake attempts to snap, but his fingers just slide together soundlessly; he ignores this and continues to speak. “Obviously our cursory backgrounds on the victims weren’t enough so we need to look deeper into them.”

 

* * *

 

Almost an hour later, when it’s nearing six in the morning, they’re still looking for any connection between the victims. Amy’s typing furiously on her keyboard, watching information come up with the intense focus Jake admires about her (not that he’d ever say that because he’s way too cool to compliment his super un-chill and nerdy partner). Something’s nudging his mind, refusing to go away until his curiosity is sated. Besides, his computer is still searching databases so it’s not like he’s wasting valuable time or anything (if he’s being honest with himself, this is the excuse he usually uses to convince himself that it’s a perfect time to execute any his crazy schemes).

He decides to bite the metaphorical bullet (having been shot once he knows he definitely does not want to bite any bullet ever).

“What was your first case as a detective like?”

Amy doesn’t even look up at him, but he can easily see her face shut down, turning into that stony and unresponsive look she wore for most of the first month of their partnership. “It was super boring,” she says, voice level. “Nothing you’d be interested in.”

Jake frowns at her. “You’re lying.”

She doesn’t answer, just stares blankly at her computer.

His eyebrows draw together in concern. He’s seen nearly all of her annoyed faces and her pained faces and her anxious faces and even some of her teasing and happy faces, but this lack of emotion is kind of scaring him. “Amy?” he asks softly. Her eyes finally meet his. “You don’t have to tell me,” he offers, “I’ll understand.”

She lets out a long, shuddering breath, before nodding, something hard in her usually soft eyes. “You know I worked in another unit before the Nine-Nine.”

Jake nods. “Yeah, you worked in Cold Cases, right?”

“Yeah,” Amy confirms, “But that wasn’t my first unit.” She takes a breath before continuing, Jake is silent for once, waiting until she’s ready. “I worked in the Special Victims Division for a month before being loaned to the Hate Crimes Task Force. I never really got any cases in the Special Victims Division because I’d just been promoted to detective and was pretty young. I was mostly partnered with senior detectives for learning purposes. When they loaned me to the Hate Crimes Task Force I finally got my own cases.” She pauses for a long time while Jake studies her face, taking in the small furrow between her brows and the slight twist of her mouth, unsure where she is going with this. 

“My first case with Hate Crimes was a home invasion in a hispanic neighbourhood. The perp,” Amy spits the word out with an anger that both surprises and scares him, “entered the house after midnight and started destroying the first floor. The husband heard the commotion downstairs and went to investigate. The perp shot him three times in the chest. He didn’t even make it all the way down the stairs.” There’s something dark in Amy’s eyes that he’s never seen before, something he could honestly go without seeing for the rest of his life.

“The wife heard the gunshots and ran to get their five and three year-old daughters before running into their seven year-old son’s room. She barricaded the door and hid the children in the closet before calling 911.” Amy’s no longer looking at him, but staring at a point past his shoulder, eyes still dark and hard but unfocused. Jake is frozen in place, staring at her with wide eyes, but he briefly wonders if he’ll see the ghosts of this case if he looks where she’s looking; he knows with absolute certainty that Amy is seeing ghosts behind him.

“It was pointless though,” Amy continues, voice level with forced composure. “The perp heard them and managed to get into the room where he assaulted the wife and then killed her. The police arrived on scene shortly after but he had already fled.”

She takes a shaky breath. “The children were unharmed but the son could barely speak. He hid his sister’s faces but witnessed the entire thing.” Jake’s stomach is churning and he feels sick, but he remains silent. Amy’s eyes finally come back to his, still burning with anger but there’s something else there, something that looks a little like broken glass. “Before the perp fled he spray painted _send job-stealing illegals away_. They were sixth generation Americans.”

Jake’s breath catches in his throat. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

Amy smiles at him, but it’s fragile. “It would have come up at some point,” she reassures him. “Besides, I caught the monster.”

“I’m glad.”

She’s silent for a long moment before continuing. “I think about those kids a lot though. Catching the perp didn’t bring their parents back.”

Jake’s heart thumps loudly in his ears. “What happened to them?”

“They had an aunt and uncle living close by. They had no children of their own so they officially adopted all three kids as soon as they could.”

“That’s good then,” he says, but immediately regrets it because it sounds insensitive.

She smiles at him in understanding though, so Jake lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “After that the captain figured it would be best if they terminated my loan to Hate Crimes,” she explains. “I guess he thought having a Latina working hate crimes would be too hard for me. So I worked in the Special Victims Division for a year and the Cold Cases for one year before I was transferred here.”

“Was it?” he asks. She tips her head curiously at him. “Working hate crimes, I mean. Was it hard?”

She shrugs. “Not really. I’ve been dealing with sexism and racism all my life, so it wasn’t really new to me.”   


“I’m sorry.”

Her entire face scrunches up. “For what?”

“For being an entit—”

Amy interrupts him with a small laugh that he definitely wasn’t expecting. “It’s fine, Jake. It’s not your fault, it’s just how society works right now, and it sucks but it’s how it is.”

“Still,” he says, floundering a little awkwardly.

She smiles at him, revealing the dimple at the corner of his mouth that he’s been seeing more frequently now that they’re kind-of-sort-of-friends. “You recognize it, which is more than I can say for a lot of people,” she assures him. 

Jake feels a little better, but there’s a weirdly protective feeling bubbling in his chest. He’s not sure how it came to exist, and he’s positive Amy wouldn’t appreciate it because she can take care of herself and could totally kick his ass, but he wonders if this is how partners are supposed to feel about each other. He had only had temporary partners before Amy transferred to the Nine-Nine, ones that switched almost every two weeks so he never really got close to any of them. Amy is his first permanent partner, and he can only compare this protective feeling to the one he got when Gina’s dad walked out on her when they were thirteen. 

“Besides,” Amy continues, oblivious to his internal contemplation, “you’ve been dealing with anti-semitism for most of your life, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jake replies, shaking himself out of his thoughts.

She glances at her computer when it dings, scrolling through some new information while continuing to speak. “Working racial or sexist hate crimes for me is like you working anti-semitic cases. It makes your blood boil, but it’s a case that needs to be solved if you want to help people.”

“Huh,” he replies, voice filled with bewilderment, “I hadn’t really thought about that.”

“Anyways, I think that’s enough bonding for six a.m.,” she says with a smile, the dark anger finally cleared from her eyes.

That surprises a laugh out of him, causing her face to brighten with delight. 

His own computer dings and he turns to it, eyes scanning the screen quickly. “Hey, did your victims go to a therapist named—”

“Henry Mercer?” she interrupts.

Jake’s face splits open in a grin. “Got ‘em.”

 

* * *

 

After the case is solved and Amy is more or less fully functioning, she can barely look at the couch in the break room because thinking back on how comfortable she is with Jake now is enough to fill her with embarrassment, especially considering how their first month of working together went (and her long ranting phone calls to her mamá, of which he can never, under any circumstance, find out about).

She hadn’t meant to tell him about her first case, because it’s hard to think about, even now after nearly two years; and the raw anger she so often feels is one of the parts of her that she would rather nobody know about, but she is glad she told Jake. It was one of the cases she had told her papá about in a anxiety induced phone call because, as a retired Latino police officer he understood, but it was also one of the cases she would never in a million years tell her mamá or brothers about. Even though Jake’s neither latino or a woman, she already knows she can trust him with this because, while he was immature at the best of times, he had a heart of gold and would do anything for his friends. It’s a weird weight off her chest, to have a partner she can trust with some of her darker parts.

When Amy finishes pouring her cup of coffee, Jake walks into the break room and eyes her, glancing at the couch a couple times before focusing on her. She knows without him saying anything that he’s thinking about that exhausting night. He raises a brow at her in questioning concern and she nods back, a reassuring smile spreading across her face.

With his check to make sure she was alright out of the way, he immediately starts to tease her. “You know, it’s usually more awkward the morning after I sleep with someone.”

“Jake!”

He laughs and holds up his hands. “Okay, okay, when I _nap_ with someone,” he concedes, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

She rolls her eyes, dropping her voice a couple octaves to play along. “Well I’d love to stay and chat, but I don’t nap and tell.”

A grin spreads across Jake’s face and he opens his mouth. Amy’s not exactly sure what he’s about to say, but she has a feeling it’s going to be a terrible pun. She groans before he even speaks, falling back on her heels and starring at the ceiling.

“Well, I do nap and tell, it’s a real deep- _seated_ problem of mine, and honestly, I’ve had _bedder_. I mean, most places I’ve napped have somewhere I can put my _futon_ without it falling asleep.”

Amy can hear the smirk in his voice and refuses to give him the satisfaction of seeing her grin.

“C’mon, Santiago, I know I’m just getting warmed up but my jokes are good _sofa_ -r.”

Amy groans again and walks around him to the door. “Come on, Peralta, some of us have real work to do.” He hop-skips after her and she’s losing the fight to stop smiling.

“Alright,” he agrees easily, “let’s go armrest some bad guys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A collection of generally fluffy one-shots that will mostly involve cuddling, because I’m a sucker for otp cuddles. Title from _Invisible Thread_ by Matt Gould and Griffin Matthews for the musical “Invisible Thread,” which I recently discovered and have been listening to almost non-stop.


	3. we finally got it all right (i choose you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soulmate AU because if there's any clichés I'm way too in to it's Soulmate AU's (and Fake Dating™ and Only One Bed™ because those are The Best Tropes tbh I don't make the rules.) Also I couldn't decide on a specific soulmate trait so this universe employs marks and timers and feelings (and some soulmates don't have the same indicator) because I'm super indecisive in all aspects of my life, including writing.
> 
> Title from _I Choose You_ by Sara Bareilles.

Something tugs in Jake’s stomach around one thirty in the afternoon, like a rope attached to his naval suddenly pulled taunt. He jerks in his chair, accidentally pushing his file off his desk and nearly rolling over it. He whips his head around but no one seems to have seen his clumsiness, so he coolly snatches his file off the floor and drops it back on his desk. His stomach is in knots and he feels like his atoms are rearranging themselves.

“What’s with you?”

Jake jerks his head up into Rosa’s dark eyes. “Hi!” he says, too brightly.

Rosa’s eyes narrow in response. 

Jake laughs uncomfortably. “Nothing. Nothing’s up. I mean, the roof is up but it’s always up, ‘cause it’s, like, above us. So nothing’s up, besides the roof. And like, the atmosphere I guess. That’s up there too.”

Rosa glances around the precinct; Gina’s too engrossed in her phone to notice anything going on around her, Boyle is lecturing some poor beat cop on the nutritional properties of bull testicles, Terry and Amy are out on a case, and everyone else is either not looking at them or don’t care enough to. Rosa leans in close, voice a rough whisper, “What’s up?”

Jake leans closer to her as well. “I dunno I just got like,” he glances around again, “I think I just got the Feeling.” 

Rosa frowns at him, one side of her mouth twisted up in disgust. “The Feeling?”

“Yeah. I mean, it could be, like, the taquitos from this morning,” he hurries to explain because this is Rosa, self proclaimed _hater of that soulmate bullshit_ , “but like, I dunno. It’s different.” There’s another tug in his stomach, like the person on the other end sharply jerked the rope. It’s an odd feeling, but not necessarily uncomfortable. 

Rosa continues to frown at him, but something clears in her face. “I believe you.”

“What?” 

She shrugs. “You look like you just got sucker punched,” a smirk spreads across her face, “You must be in _luv._ ” 

“Okay, first of all,” he retorts, “please never say that again. Second of all, if you ever do _please_ let me video tape it. Third of all, _I am not in love._ ”

“Ooooooh.” 

Jake’s head jerks up, locking eyes with Gina, who has somehow heard his hissed insistence across the bullpen. What’s more shocking is that she heard it while using her phone. “Is someone being Marked?”

“No,” Jake nearly shouts, but he doesn’t shout because he’s chill about this entire soulmate thing. So chill. Chiller than anyone else in the precinct. The chillest.

Rosa shoots him a warning glare, before glancing at Boyle, who’s still engrossed in explaining the merits of bull testicles. “Oh thank God,” Jake mutters, because the last thing he needs is Boyle, who is freakishly invested in his love life to begin with, also getting involved.

Gina slinks over to his desk, a wicked grin plastered across her face. “Oh this will be good,” she drawls.

“No,” Jake hisses, “Nothing will be good because nothing’s happen—” he breaks off as the tug in his naval strengthens until he feels like he’s being pulled off his chair, before finally falling slack.

Gina practically cackles, because she isn’t as chill as Jake is. Nope.  Definitely not.

Rosa’s grin takes on a predatory edge that makes Jake think she’s about to eat him alive.

Both of them are taking _far_ to much joy in this than they ought to be.

(Inwardly, he’s kinda panicking because there’s someone he’s already pretty sure that he’s in love with even though he’s never had a Feeling or been Marked and neither has she but, well, he’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop when she comes in one day and announces she’s found her soulmate and is moving to Tahiti because he’s not entirely sure where that is and that’d be just his luck.)

He never even considered the option that _he_ would find his own soulmate before her (read: that he’d find a soulmate that wasn’t her).

“Chin up, lil pup,” Gina says, just a hint away from being actually comforting, “Your better half is probably a criminal.”

Rosa smirks down at him. “Most likely one of the regulars.”

“Ooooh,” Gina purrs, her grin nearly splitting her face, “Maybe a murderer.”

Jake groans, dropping his head into his arms, before deciding banging his head into the desk would be less painful. How he got the two queens of ignoring soulmates meddling in his newly discovered love life is some sort of twisted miracle. 

“Maybe car theft,” Rosa adds, “It’s probably Doug Judy.”

“It’s _not_ Doug Judy!”

A couple other detectives glance up at Jake’s outburst and he feels his checks glow as he waves them down. “Just eliminating suspects from a case.” He feels their judgemental eyes on his face (even as he knows they actually couldn’t care less) and half stands up. “It’s a real case!”

They blink at him.

Rosa shoves his shoulder, pushing him back into his chair and glaring at the other detectives who collectively shudder under her gaze before returning to their files and computers. “If you aren’t cool about this _Boyle_ will hear,” Rosa mutters to him.

Jake pales at the thought. There’s enough pressure on him already and having his well-meaning, if intrusive, best friend is the very last thing he needs.

The pull is getting near unbearable, like a tug-of-war that he has no hope of winning 

Rosa and Gina fade to the background and he swings his chair towards the elevator, somehow _knowing_ this is the moment that most people spend their entire life waiting for.

Terry emerges from the elevator first, an uncharacteristic frown on his face as he says something to the other occupant of the elevator.

And then Amy’s there, dragging a belligerent man twice her size by the arm and barking something at him and— _Oh._

_It’s her_.

Jake’s eyes widen and he can feel his jaw drop involuntarily as he stares at Amy’s back while she deposits the man into holding, turning to continue a conversation with Terry. But Jake’s known her long enough to know that she’s not her usual bundle of focused ambition, there’s something rigid in her posture, something uncontrolled in the tilt of her head, something anxious in the beat of fingers against her thigh. 

He can sense Rosa and Gina at his shoulder and practically _feel_ the confused shock radiating off them, unsure about what they’re about to witness, but all of his energy is on Amy and he’s suddenly thankful he’s currently sitting because his knees are a little weak and he’s not entirely positive that he would be able stand even if he wanted to.

Jake wills Amy to _look_ at him, because then he’ll be able to tell, then he’ll know for sure. Her head turns towards him as if she heard his thoughts, mouth still open, the last half of her sentence lost in the crackling air between them as her eyes lock on his. There’s a slightly wild look in her eyes, something he’s never seen before, like she’s out of control. His heart takes a swan dive out of his chest and his entire body is on fire, as if being ripped apart and rearranged around her; as if every bone in his body is re-knitting itself to point in her direction; as if he’s lost at sea with only her light to guide him home; as if the sun has taken residence somewhere under his sternum and is threatening to consume him with its heat.

Terry seems to realize what he’s witnessing and gasps as he looks over at Jake, but Jake can’t bring himself to care because Amy is _looking_ at him and it’s far too much and not enough all at once.

Amy takes a half step towards him and the air remains charged, like the moments before a thunderstorm when the air waits with the crackling energy of lightening. Jake rises from his chair and the entire bullpen goes still, holding its breath as it anticipates whatever is about to take place.

And then Amy, rational, resourceful Amy, straightens her spine and takes determined steps towards him, only faltering slightly as she nears him, probably feeling the same intensifying pull in her navel that he feels in his. She finally reaches him after what feels like years, and when her fingers curl around his wrist his skin feels like it’s burning and cooling all at once. He feels her phantom heartbeat against his as her fingertips press into his pulse point and he lets out an involuntary gasp.

She barely misses a beat as she continues past their desks and Rosa and Gina’s twin looks of shock, pulling him easily along (he’d follow her anywhere if he’s being honest with himself) around a near giddy Boyle, through the tense bullpen, and down the hall into the silence of the evidence room. 

When the door clicks closed behind them he locks it for good measure, though he’s pretty sure most of the precinct, or their squad at the very least, will be pressed up against the door and windows, straining to see through the blinds.

Amy seems to think the same thing because she continues to pull him further into the dim room, before dropping his wrist and turning to look at him. Jake feels the loss more strongly than he thought he would.

“So,” she says, eyes wide on his shoes.

“Yeah,” he agrees, eyes wide on the top of her head.

The silence stretches between them, air still crackling with that same energy from that moment when he _knew,_ except now it’s about a thousand times stronger because the majority of the Ninety-Ninth Precinct isn’t staring at them in nosey anticipation. 

“I wasn’t expecting it to be you,” he blurts out, and then immediately curses himself because while he means it, he doesn’t mean it in the way she is probably taking it and he’s already screwed this up and it’s only been about five minutes and dear God this is—

“I wasn’t expecting it to be you either,” Amy responds quietly, and her eyes are on his and there’s the tinniest smile playing on her lips and Jake is pretty sure he swoons.

“I’m glad it’s you,” he replies, before feeling his face burst into fire because saying that five minutes after _knowing_ is not chill or cool at all.

Amy’s smile widens though and he can’t even try to stop the grin that splits his face in response. She shifts towards him a little and he swears there’s a redness to her cheeks in the dim light of the evidence room. “Me too,” she agrees.

Which is enough for Jake’s chest to burst into what feels like butterflies as he takes a small step towards her.

“What changed?” he asks, “I mean, usually it’s like a first meeting thing, and we met, like, eight years ago.”

Amy’s face clears, easing towards sheepishness. “I never told you?”

Jake frowns, heart stuttering in slight fear. “Told me what?”

Amy’s hands flutter against her thighs. “My family has this, like, _thing_ about meeting soulmates.”

“What? Like an Error?”

“Oh no,” Amy hurries to explain, “Nothing like that. It’s like a genetic thing, but it’s not an Error. Our Indicators don’t activate until a certain point in our lives instead of at birth, like most Marks, or during first meetings like most Feelings.”

“What?”

Amy smiles ruefully. “I don’t know. Doctors couldn’t diagnose my older brothers and by the time my parents had me they gave up on making appointments. But it’s like this weird thing where it takes time for our Indicators to actually, you know, Indicate. Like Ed’s Mark didn’t appear until he was thirty, after he married his wife. Luís didn’t get his until his wedding day. And Fico didn’t get the Dream until after he worked with his husband for, like, four years.”

Jake just stares at her, not blinking. She shifts uncomfortably. “It’s not unheard of,” she continues, almost rambling. “It’s called Delayed Marking. It’s not considered an Error so there’s no real diagnosis for it, but it’s fairly well-documented. No one’s really discovered is why it affects both soulmates though. Like, it’s genetic for my family, but it affects our soulmates too even if they don’t carry the gene for it.”

“I just— How has this never come up on stakeouts?” Jake grins at her. He’s not upset, not even a little bit, because Amy Santiago, AKA the woman he’s kind of been in love with for the last year and a half, is his actual, real-life soulmate. “I mean, we’ve discussed our weirdest sexual experiences but not Indicators?”

Amy’s entire body relaxes as a smile spreads across her face, the right corner dimpling and making his stomach swoop like he just reached the peak of a rollercoaster. “I don’t know,” she laughs, “It’s not like I’ve ever tried to hide it.”

“I am insulted that you would ever keep _anything_ from me,” he teases, enjoying the sparkle of amusement in her eyes and the easy smile across her lips. “We tell each other _everything._ I told you about Pineapples.”

She seems to consider this for a moment. “Mmm, actually no, Gina told me about Pineapples. Try again.”

“What?” he exclaims. “I’m so betrayed.”

Her laugh is the best sound he’s ever heard and Jake suddenly really, _really_ wants to kiss her. This thought brings with it the realization that she’s standing so close he can see the faint outline of her contact lenses against her dark eyes, and for the first time he thinks that maybe he can just lean in and kiss her. (Probably. Most likely.)

Amy seems to realize this at the same moment that he does and her eyes dart down to his lips, his own eyes flickering between her wide eyes and the almost smile that’s curling her mouth slightly to the right. His heart stutters and the tug in his navel somehow both lessens and strengthens as his head moves closer until his nose is brushing her cheek and her lips are on his.

He melts into her then, hands sliding up her back and pure sunlight bursting from every crack in him. Her hands slide around his neck and into his hair, tugging at the short strands there and angling his face closer to hers. His stomach bottoms out as he feels her smile against his lips and he’s not sure whether he actually feels her rapid heartbeat from where her chest presses against his, or whether that’s the ever elusive phantom heartbeat he’s heard about and almost definitely felt earlier. That sunlight from earlier licks at his heart and curls around it like a gentle flame holding his heart. The intense burning sensation from the Feeling has faded, replaced by genuine warmth and happiness stemming from where Amy presses herself impossibly close, up on her tiptoes and arms around his shoulders making him feel like she’s trying to crawl inside him and make her home there.

_Which is good,_ Jake thinks faintly, a little dizzy from the lack of oxygen but mostly from the fact that he’s kissing Amy Santiago and this feels exactly like what he was made to do, _because his home is somewhere inside her smile._

 

* * *

 

“You know,” he says conversationally that night, running a hand through her hair where her head rests on his lap, her body stretched languidly across his couch, “I’m kind of glad you have the whole Delayed Marking thing.”

“It’s a well-documented non-Error, you don’t have to add ‘thing’ behind it,” she chides, but her eyes are still sparkling and he can’t help but grin down at her.

“Fine, I’m kind of glad you have the whole Delayed Marking.” She rolls her eyes with a smile. 

“Why?” she prompts when he doesn’t continue.

He kind of regrets saying that now, because he’s going to get really cheesy and stuff and it’s only been like seven hours since they're Indicators actually, you know, Indicated each other. But then he shakes off his doubt because, sure, they’ve been Indicated for less than a day, but he’s also known Amy for _years_ before that. They have eight whole years of being partners and best friends and he’s kind of been in love with her too. It’s that thought that gives him the courage to force the words out of his mouth.

“Because then I could fall in love with you without something compelling me to.”

Her eyes soften at the corners, which is all the warning he has before she’s surging up to capture his mouth, hands cupping his face and then sliding around to his neck to angle his head towards hers.

He thinks she breathes _me too_ against his mouth but he doesn’t really hear it over the _thump-thump_ of his heart and the phantom beat of hers and the gentle tug at his navel and the quiet hum in the back of Amy’s throat.

And it’s kind of the best Indicating in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A collection of generally fluffy one-shots that will mostly involve cuddling, because I’m a sucker for otp cuddles. Title from _Invisible Thread_ by Matt Gould and Griffin Matthews for the musical “Invisible Thread,” which I recently discovered and have been listening to almost non-stop.


End file.
